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The researchers observed that provoking others to laugh at you primarily has positive effects: "Women reported more often that they tended to be satisfied with their relationship and felt more attracted to their partner. They and their partners also tended to be equally satisfied with their sex life," Brauer continues. Being afraid of being laughed at, on the other hand, tended to have negative effects: people who have this fear are less content in their relationship and also tend to mistrust their partner. This also has consequences for the partner: men said more frequently that they did not really feel satisfied with their sex life if their partner was afraid of being laughed at.

You have to tell them the joke is funny, or important

“If you don’t care, or if you don’t seem like you care, why should they care?” You know, you’re the one with the microphone for some reason, and they’re sitting there in chairs listening to you for some reason, so you better act like you care about this. I started to pick things that I had more strong takes on, as stupid or random as they may be.

How Watching ‘Caddyshack’ Helps Me Stave Off Depression

To escape the world into a Caddyshack screening while I’m depressed means suspending time and entering another world. In this world, body and mind, self and soul, coexist side-by-side, not naturally, but as conjoined twins. In this world, I need beginnings, middles, and endings. Inside this world, I need Kenny Loggins overtures, bromances, cliffhangers, sight-gags, dumb homunculi and military-grade explosions. In this world I need Caddyshack.

Set the bar low, says Steve Carrell

I didn’t set the bar very high for myself, I’ll be honest. I didn’t have a vision. I just wanted to be employed, and I was willing to do almost everything short of pornography to continue working as an actor. I know that’s a pretty horrible image.

Digital comedy

A microphone placed at the front of the theater would provide White with a recording of the audience’s laughter, against which to edit future versions of the film. If a joke didn’t send the crest of the waveform sufficiently high, it would either be tweaked or replaced with an alternate joke and demoted to the film’s “B-cut” — a version composed of jokes that hadn’t killed but that Feig wasn’t ready to trash. Some test audiences would unwittingly watch the B-cut, and if certain jokes went over great, “then I’ll steal them and drop them into the A-cut,” White said. Last year, Paramount Pictures went as far as to give the “Anchorman 2” B-cut its own limited theatrical release: Overseen by Bretherton, White’s deputy, it told the exact story as the official release, but with 763 different jokes slotted in.

Joan Rivers and Las Vegas

First of all, she said, those mobsters knew how to care for a lady, those guys with bent noses were respectful and gentlemen, except when they were killing you. Second, she said, organized crime is better than disorganized crime, which will replace it. Third, the mobsters had a patina of class, they dressed well and saw that everyone else did, so Vegas wasn’t a slobocracy, which is what it is becoming with men in shorts playing the slots in the lobby of the hotel. The old Vegas had dignity.

In makeup, they go, “Hey, Jimmy, some advice: Lorne Michaels doesn’t laugh when you audition. So don’t let that throw you.” Then the audio guy, he goes, “Hey, little advice — Lorne doesn’t like to laugh.” I’m like, “O.K.” Then Marci [Klein, a longtime “SNL” producer] comes out: “Jimmy, they’re ready for you. But hey, a little advice for you. If Lorne doesn’t laugh, be cool.” I’m like, what is this guy’s problem? He’s doing a comedy show. Why does he not like to laugh?

I got in an elevator, and there was a guy who was also auditioning, and I thought: “That guy brought a lot of props. I didn’t bring anything.” And he was looking at me, going, “That guy didn’t have to bring any props.” We were just sizing each other up in the elevator. And that was Andy Samberg.